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In a Burst of Light

Gamma rays produce flashes that are brighter than a billion suns yet last only a few milliseconds and have been simply too fast to catch... until now. The artist's concept above depicts the sequence of events as a black hole devours a neutron star, producing gamma-ray bursts as it does so. Using data from the Swift observatory, scientists have gleaned tantalizing evidence of a black hole eating a neutron star--first stretching the neutron star into a crescent, swallowing it, and then gulping up crumbs of the broken star in the minutes and hours that followed.